Category: Science & Technology

A Christian bioethics lecturer has spoken out against new DNA surgery carried out by Chinese scientists who are reportedly creating lab-grown human embryos in order to test disease-removing techniques. “What concerns me and actually quite a number of bio-ethicists and those who are looking and researching in this field is that what we here have is scientists who are deliberately creating human life, deliberately creating embryos. These are not embryos that have been left over as spares from fertility treatments from IVF,” Dr. Trevor Stammers, Bioethics lecturer at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham, told Premier. “They’ve been specifically created to be...

LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) – British scientists have used a genome editing tool known as CRISPR/Cas9 to knock out a gene in embryos just a few days old, testing the technique’s ability to decipher key gene functions in early human development. The researchers said their experiments, using a technology that is the subject of fierce international debate because of fears that it could be used to create babies to order, will deepen understanding of the biology of early human development. CRISPR/Cas9 can enable scientists to find and modify or replace genetic defects. Many describe it as game-changing. “One way...

The U.S. State Department is experiencing worldwide unclassified email outages. The cause has not yet been identified as officials rule out a cyber attack. AP reports: The officials said the outage began early Friday morning and that technicians were working to restore email as soon as possible. The officials said the outage was not caused by “any external action or interference.” The department was forced to shut down its unclassified email systems in 2014 in what officials said at the time was routine maintenance. But it later emerged that the system had been compromised by hackers believed to be affiliated...

In the name of safeguarding its 1.4 billion people, China has been collecting biometric information from millions of people whom it deems potential threats—among them, Uyghurs, migrant workers, and college students—as part of national DNA database. China’s Ministry of Public Security, which oversees the database, has amassed information for more than 40 million people—the country says it has the world’s biggest database of DNA information (link in Chinese)—as of 2015, according to a report published by Human Rights Watch (HRW) Monday (May 15). For comparison, in the US, the FBI’s national DNA index has 12.7 million offender profiles. “Mass...

eople who have had their brains cryogenically frozen could be ‘woken up’ within three years, a pioneering Italian surgeon has claimed. Professor Sergio Canavero, Director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, is aiming to carry out the first human head transplant within 10 months and then wants to begin trials on brain transplants. If the procedures are successful, he believes that frozen brains could be thawed and inserted into a donor body. Hundreds of people who are dying or paralysed have had their bodies or brains cryogenically preserved in the hope that medical science will be able to bring them back...